THE DEGENERACY OF ALCHEMY.
I have tried to show that alchemy aimed at giving experimental proof
of a certain theory of the whole system of nature, including humanity.
The practical culmination of the alchemical quest presented a
threefold aspect; the alchemists sought the stone of wisdom, for by
gaining that they gained the control of wealth; they sought the
universal panacea, for that would give them the power of enjoying
wealth and life; they sought the soul of the world, for thereby they
could hold communion with spiritual existences, and enjoy the fruition
of spiritual life.
The object of their search was to satisfy their material needs, their
intellectual capacities, and their spiritual yearnings. The alchemists
of the nobler sort always made the first of these objects subsidiary
to the other two; they gave as their reason for desiring to make gold,
the hope that gold might become so common that it would cease to be
sought after by mankind. The author of _An Open Substance_ says:
"Would to God ... all men might become adepts in our art, for then
gold, the common idol of mankind, would lose its value, and we should
prize it only for its scientific teaching."
But the desire to make gold must always have been a very powerful
incentive in determining men to attempt the laborious discipline of
alchemy; and with them, as with all men, the love of money was the
root of much evil. When a man became a student of alchemy merely for
the purpose of making gold, and failed to make it--as he always
did--it was very easy for him to pretend he had succeeded in order
that he might really make gold by cheating other people. Such a man
rapidly degenerated into a charlatan; he used the language of alchemy
to cover his frauds, and with the hope of deluding his dupes by
high-sounding phrases. And, it must be admitted, alchemy lent itself
admirably to imposture. It promised unlimited wealth; it encouraged
the wildest dreams of the seeker after pleasure; and over these dreams
it cast the glamour of great ideas, the idea of the unity of nature,
and the idea of communion with other spheres of life, of calling in
the help of 'inheritors of unfulfilled renown,' and so it seemed to
touch to fine issues the sordidness of unblushing avarice.
Moreover, the working with strange ingredients and odd-fashioned
instruments, and the employment of mouth-filling phrases, and scraps
of occult learning which seemed to imply unutterable things, gave just
that pleasing dash of would-be wickedness to the process of consulting
the alchemist which acts as a fascination to many people. The earnest
person felt that by using the skill and knowledge of the alchemists,
for what he deemed a good purpose, he was compelling the powers of
evil to work for him and his objects.
It was impossible that such a system as alchemy should appear to the
plain man of the middle ages, when the whole scheme of life and the
universe rested on a magical basis, to be more than a kind of magic
which hovered between the black magic of the Sorcerer and the white
magic of the Church. Nor is it to be wondered at that a system which
lends itself to imposture so easily as alchemy did, should be thought
of by the plain man of modern times as having been nothing but a
machinery of fraud.
It is evident from the _Canon's Yeoman's Tale_ in Chaucer, that many
of those who professed to turn the base metals into gold were held in
bad repute as early as the 14th century. The "false chanoun" persuaded
the priest, who was his dupe, to send his servant for quicksilver,
which he promised to make into "as good silver and as fyn, As ther is
any in youre purse or myn"; he then gave the priest a "crosselet," and
bid him put it on the fire, and blow the coals. While the priest was
busy with the fire,
This false chanoun--the foulè feend hym fecche!--
Out of his bosom took a bechen cole,
In which ful subtilly was maad an hole,
And therinne put was of silver lemaille
An ounce, and stoppéd was withouten faille
The hole with wex, to kepe the lemaille in.
The "false chanoun" pretended to be sorry for the priest, who was so
busily blowing the fire:--
Ye been right hoot, I se wel how ye swete;
Have heer a clooth, and wipe awey the we't.
And whylès that the preest wipèd his face,
This chanoun took his cole with hardè grace,
And leyde it above, upon the middèward
Of the crosselet, and blew wel afterward.
Til that the colès gonnè fastè brenne.
As the coal burned the silver fell into the "crosselet." Then the
canon said they would both go together and fetch chalk, and a pail of
water, for he would pour out the silver he had made in the form of an
ingot. They locked the door, and took the key with them. On returning,
the canon formed the chalk into a mould, and poured the contents of
the crucible into it. Then he bade the priest,
Look what ther is, put in thin hand and grope,
Thow fyndè shalt ther silver, as I hope.
What, devel of hellè! Sholde it ellis be?
Shavyng of silver silver is, _parde!_
He putte his hand in, and took up a teyne
Of silver fyn, and glad in every veyne
Was this preest, when he saugh that it was so.
The conclusion of the _Canon's Yeoman's Tale_ shows that, in the 14th
century, there was a general belief in the possibility of finding the
philosopher's stone, and effecting the transmutation, although the
common practitioners of the art were regarded as deceivers. A disciple
of Plato is supposed to ask his master to tell him the "namè of the
privee stoon." Plato gives him certain directions, and tells him he
must use _magnasia_; the disciple asks--
'What is Magnasia, good sire, I yow preye?'
'It is a water that is maad, I seye,
Of elementés fourè,' quod Plato.
'Telle me the rootè, good sire,' quod he tho,
Of that water, if it be yourè wille.'
'Nay, nay,' quod Plato, 'certein that I nylle;
The philosophres sworn were everychoon
That they sholden discovers it unto noon,
Ne in no book it write in no manere,
For unto Crist it is so lief and deere,
That he wol nat that it discovered bee,
But where it liketh to his deitee
Man for tenspire, and eek for to deffende
Whom that hym liketh; lo, this is the ende.'
The belief in the possibility of alchemy seems to have been general
sometime before Chaucer wrote; but that belief was accompanied by the
conviction that alchemy was an impious pursuit, because the
transmutation of baser metals into gold was regarded as trenching on
the prerogative of the Creator, to whom alone this power rightfully
belonged. In his _Inferno_ (which was probably written about the year
1300), Dante places the alchemists in the eighth circle of hell, not
apparently because they were fraudulent impostors, but because, as one
of them says, "I aped creative nature by my subtle art."
In later times, some of those who pretended to have the secret and to
perform great wonders by the use of it, became rich and celebrated,
and were much sought after. The most distinguished of these
pseudo-alchemists was he who passed under the name of Cagliostro. His
life bears witness to the eagerness of human beings to be deceived.
Joseph Balsamo was born in 1743 at Palermo, where his parents were
tradespeople in a good way of business.[5] In the memoir of himself,
which he wrote in prison, Balsamo seeks to surround his birth and
parentage with mystery; he says, "I am ignorant, not only of my
birthplace, but even of the parents who bore me.... My earliest
infancy was passed in the town of Medina, in Arabia, where I was
brought up under the name of Acharat."
[5] The account of the life of Cagliostro is much condensed
from Mr A.E. Waite's _Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers_.
When he was thirteen years of age, Balsamo's parents determined he
should be trained for the priesthood, but he ran away from his school.
He was then confined in a Benedictine monastery. He showed a
remarkable taste for natural history, and acquired considerable
knowledge of the use of drugs; but he soon tired of the discipline and
escaped. For some years he wandered about in different parts of Italy,
living by his wits and by cheating. A goldsmith consulted him about a
hidden treasure; he pretended to invoke the aid of spirits, frightened
the goldsmith, got sixty ounces of gold from him to carry on his
incantations, left him in the lurch, and fled to Messina. In that
town he discovered an aged aunt who was sick; the aunt died, and left
her money to the Church. Balsamo assumed her family name, added a
title of nobility, and was known henceforward as the Count Alessandro
Cagliostro.
In Messina he met a mysterious person whom he calls Altotas, and from
whom, he says in his Memoir, he learnt much. The following account of
the meeting of Balsamo and the stranger is taken from Waite's book:
"As he was promenading one day near the jetty at the extremity of the
port he encountered an individual singularly habited and possessed of
a most remarkable countenance. This person, aged apparently about
fifty years, seemed to be an Armenian, though, according to other
accounts, he was a Spaniard or Greek. He wore a species of caftan, a
silk bonnet, and the extremities of his breeches were concealed in a
pair of wide boots. In his left hand he held a parasol, and in his
right the end of a cord, to which was attached a graceful Albanian
greyhound.... Cagliostro saluted this grotesque being, who bowed
slightly, but with satisfied dignity. 'You do not reside in Messina,
signor?' he said in Sicilian, but with a marked foreign accent.
Cagliostro replied that he was tarrying for a few days, and they began
to converse on the beauty of the town and on its advantageous
situation, a kind of Oriental imagery individualising the eloquence of
the stranger, whose remarks were, moreover, adroitly adorned with a
few appropriate compliments."
Although the stranger said he received no one at his house he allowed
Cagliostro to visit him. After various mysterious doings the two went
off to Egypt, and afterwards to Malta, where they performed many
wonderful deeds before the Grand Master, who was much impressed. At
Malta Altotas died, or, at anyrate, vanished. Cagliostro then
travelled for some time, and was well received by noblemen,
ambassadors, and others in high position. At Rome he fell in love with
a young and beautiful lady, Lorenza Feliciani, and married her.
Cagliostro used his young wife as a decoy to attract rich and foolish
men. He and his wife thrived for a time, and accumulated money and
jewels; but a confederate betrayed them, and they fled to Venice, and
then wandered for several years in Italy, France, and England. They
seem to have made a living by the sale of lotions for the skin, and by
practising skilful deceptions.
About the year 1770 Cagliostro began to pose as an alchemist. After
another period of wandering he paid a second visit to London and
founded a secret society, based on (supposed) Egyptian rites, mingled
with those of freemasonry. The suggestion of this society is said to
have come from a curious book he picked up on a second-hand stall in
London. The society attracted people by the strangeness of its
initiatory rites, and the promises of happiness and wellbeing made by
its founder to those who joined it. Lodges were established in many
countries, many disciples were obtained, great riches were amassed,
and Cagliostro flourished exceedingly.
In his _Histoire du Merveilleux dans les Temps modernes_, Figuier,
speaking of Cagliostro about this period of his career, says:
"He proclaimed himself the bearer of the mysteries of Isis and Anubis
from the far East.... He obtained numerous and distinguished
followers, who on one occasion assembled in great force to hear Joseph
Balsamo expound to them the doctrines of Egyptian freemasonry. At this
solemn convention he is said to have spoken with overpowering
eloquence;... his audience departed in amazement and completely
converted to the regenerated and purified masonry. None doubted that
he was an initiate of the arcana of nature, as preserved in the temple
of Apis at the era when Cambyses belaboured that capricious divinity.
From this moment the initiations into the new masonry were numerous,
albeit they were limited to the aristocracy of society. There are
reasons to believe that the grandees who were deemed worthy of
admission paid exceedingly extravagantly for the honour."
Cagliostro posed as a physician, and claimed the power of curing
diseases simply by the laying on of hands. He went so far as to assert
he had restored to life the dead child of a nobleman in Paris; the
discovery that the miracle was effected by substituting a living child
for the dead one caused him to flee, laden with spoil, to Warsaw, and
then to Strassburg.
Cagliostro entered Strassburg in state, amid an admiring crowd, who
regarded him as more than human. Rumour said he had amassed vast
riches by the transmutation of base metals into gold. Some people in
the crowd said he was the wandering Jew, others that he had been
present at the marriage feast of Cana, some asserted he was born
before the deluge, and one supposed he might be the devil. The
goldsmith whom he had cheated of sixty ounces of gold many years
before was in the crowd, and, recognising him, tried to stop the
carriage, shouting: "Joseph Balsamo! It is Joseph! Rogue, where are my
sixty ounces of gold?" "Cagliostro scarcely deigned to glance at the
furious goldsmith; but in the middle of the profound silence which the
incident occasioned among the crowd, a voice, apparently in the
clouds, uttered with great distinctness the following words: 'Remove
this lunatic, who is possessed by infernal spirits.' Some of the
spectators fell on their knees, others seized the unfortunate
goldsmith, and the brilliant cortege passed on" (Waite).
From Strassburg Cagliostro* went to Paris, where he lived in great
splendour, curing diseases, making gold and diamonds, mystifying and
duping people of all ranks by the splendid ritual and gorgeous
feasting of his secret society, and amassing riches. He got entangled
in the affair of the Diamond Necklace, and left Paris. Trying to
advance his society in Italy he was arrested by the agents of the
Inquisition, and imprisoned, then tried, and condemned to death. The
sentence was commuted to perpetual imprisonment. After two years in
the prison of San Angelo he died at the age of fifty.
*Transcriber's Note: Original "Cagliosto".